Continuing to show no ill-effects of the accident that damaged his Ford Falcon en-route to the Bahrain International Circuit, Mark Winterbottom has clinched pole position for the latest round of the V8 Supercar Championship – the Desert 400 in the Middle East.
Winterbottom's Ford Performance Racing machine was one of four cars on the transporter involved in the accident but the car was on form in qualifying with the Winterbottom posting a quickest time of 1m 25.6093s to secure his place at the head of the field. Joining Winterbottom on the front row is the Jim Beam Racing Falcon of Steven Johnson – Johnson posting his best qualifying result of the season to date.
Russell Ingall and Garth Tander share the second row, with Tander emerging on top of the four drivers currently dicing for the title. Tander's Toll HSV Dealer Team stable-mate Rick Kelly starts seventh but Team Vodafone pairing Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup failed to make it through to the final stage of qualifying. Lowndes will line up eleventh as a result with points leader Whincup 14th.
Away from the title hopefuls, James Courtney and Mark Skaife split the two Toll HSV cars in fifth and sixth, with Paul Morris, Greg Murphy and Lee Holdsworth all inside the top ten.
Further down the order, Jason Richards was the big loser for Tasman Motorsport as he only managed 21st place while defending Desert 400 champion Jason Bright was on place further back after his Britek Motorsport team worked miracles to get the damaged Fujitsu Racing Falcon repaired in time for the race weekend after its shunt at Surfers Paradise.
